


Puppy Love

by ErinPtah



Series: The Liberalverse [6]
Category: Fake News FPF
Genre: Courtship, Getting Together, Healthy Boundaries 101, M/M, Mirror Universe, Past Underage, Puppies, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-22
Updated: 2009-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-03 17:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: Jon finally breaks the repressive shackles of the patriarchy by getting a divorce. Surely this means he'll be ready to jump into bed with Stephen now, right? Right?(Prompted by deepad: "Happy ending! Gay rainbow liberal puppies! Jon refusing to put out until he is convinced Stephen won't go on Oprah to talk about it after!")





	1. Chapter 1

The news quietly circled among the staff, most of whom took the cue to give Jon plenty of space.

Over the next couple of days, those who were closer to him dropped in with words of sympathy, and the occasional offer to bring over dinner or something. Jon reassured them that he did know how to cook, and had no intention of getting himself stuck with canned soup and granola bars. Besides, he had had months to get used to the idea, even if the legal bits had only just been finalized.

After about a week of this, Stephen showed up for lunch with an overflowing gift basket and a mile-wide grin.

"So," he said, "this means you're available now, right?"

When it came to other people, Jon was much better at holding Stephen back.

He had even gotten a sense of when to pre-empt things. Like the time, a couple of years earlier, when he had caught Stephen alone after a particularly sensitive conversation with the other correspondents.

The actual conversation had gone surprisingly well, and he said so. "You did good, Stephen. I think Sam really appreciated it."

Stephen shrugged modestly. "It's only what any decent person would have said. Sam's body, Sam's choice. Only a far-right moral-majority reactionary fascist would try to make her feel ashamed about choosing not to derail the whole rest of her life because of a little excess in her twenties."

"That would be a pretty dickish thing to do, yeah." Jon let that settle, then added, "You're not going to tell anyone, of course."

Stephen looked up in shock. "Jon! _You're_ not a far-right moral-majority reactionary fascist, are you? If there's nothing shameful about it, then why should she hide it?"

"Because it's personal? Because she doesn't want to deal with gossip and weird stares and people, fascist or not, making judgments about her? It's also her choice whether people get to know about it, Stephen."

"She let _us_ know about it," pointed out Stephen.

"That doesn't mean she wants to share it with the whole world. Listen, until she puts out a press release or starts joking about it on-air, you respect her privacy. No matter how reactionary you think it is. Got it?"

Stephen huffed a sigh. " _Fine_."

"Good man." Jon turned to leave.

"Just for the record," called Stephen after him, "anything _I_ do, you have my full permission to talk about with anyone you want. I don't do things I would be ashamed for the whole world to know about."

"Stephen, you have no sense of shame."

"Exactly!"

Jon stared at the gift basket in disbelief.

The flowers, candy, and ribbons were all standard issue. The rest, not so much.

"Is this a _mint-flavored condom?_ " he stammered, plucking one of the little colored square wrappers from the bunch. "Who would want to give a blowjob if it tasted like brushing your teeth?"

"You'll be surprised," insisted Stephen. "They go really well with the chocolate body paint."

Jon looked more closely at what he had thought was a jar of sandwich spread. _Oh._

"And even if you don't like them," continued Stephen cheerfully, " _I_ think they're great, so they're not going to go to waste."

Dropping the condom like it had scalded him, Jon shoved the basket back across the desk. "What the hell, Stephen?"

His smile unwavering, Stephen blinked. "I don't know, Jon. _What_ the hell?"

"Listen, I don't know how much you've heard, but I'm kind of in a rough spot right now! This is really not the time for you to come in looking to get laid!"

Stephen's face fell. "Jon, I — I thought...."

"You thought what? That you could swoop in while I was vulnerable and take advantage of that?"

"No!" cried Stephen, now genuinely distressed. "I thought you'd be upset! I thought you'd be hurt and sad and want something to help you feel better! And sex always makes _me_ feel better! Especially with one of these in," he added, digging through the basket for something that was probably unspeakably kinky. "You've got to try it, Jon, it's amazing, it—"

"Enough!" interrupted Jon, holding up both hands. "You want to make me feel better, Stephen? You really do?"

"Yes!"

Picking up the basket, Jon thrust the whole thing into Stephen's arms. "Then take this, get out of here, and find some way to comfort me that _doesn't_ involve sex. Or anything _related_ to sex. Or even the merest _mention_ of sex. Understand?"

Okay, so Jon's outburst hadn't been entirely fair.

It wasn't that Stephen thought his feelings were the only ones that mattered. Rather, he figured that everyone's feelings deserved to be heard, on any issue. And he couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't just as willing to share them.

(Jon had figured everyone on the left was rolling their eyes at Glenn Beck's over-the-top displays, until Stephen started playing the worst clips on the _Report_ and gushing over them with tearful admiration.

"Stephen," Jon had protested later, "he's acting like he's seriously unstable."

"It's sad," Stephen had sighed, "that we live in a society where men are punished for having the courage to express their emotions.")

Still, Jon didn't regret the ultimatum. Normally he could hold off Stephen's almost aggressive emoting, keeping him at a manageable distance. Right now, he simply didn't have the energy. And he definitely couldn't handle it as a full-time job.

Jon loved his friend dearly, but if Stephen ever seriously wanted there to be something more between them, he was going to have to learn to rein himself in.

"I don't understand it, Sweetness," mumbled Stephen around the metal tip in his mouth. "He wants me, I know he does. So why doesn't he take me?"

The hookah bubbled soothingly at him.

Stephen sucked in a breath. "He's always like this, you know," he continued, every word sending a puff of smoke rolling down his beard. "I'll show up to an office party in a perfectly casual outfit, and, yeah, it's skintight leather but it's not like there are holes in awkward places, and he'll tell me to run down to wardrobe and put some real pants on. As if I wasn't wearing it for his enjoyment in the first place!"

He stroked Sweetness' pipe absently, sinking deeper into the beanbag chair.

"Or anyone's enjoyment, obviously," he added quickly. "I'm not trying to exclude anyone, here. Just because some people attack me as a moral degenerate doesn't mean they're any less deserving of the sight of my hot bod, right?"

Sucking in another breath, he blew a flurry of smoke rings across the room. (They weren't quite Gandalf-level yet, but he was definitely getting there.)

"Make Jon feel better without using sex," he said doubtfully. "But how am I supposed to find anything else that feels anywhere near as good?"

Sweetness bubbled suggestively.

"No, Sweetness," puffed Stephen, "I'm afraid he's a prude about mind-expanding chemicals, too."

Jon hadn't quite realized how openminded Stephen was, sexually speaking, until the day Stephen started defending NAMBLA.

"You have to admit, though, that our current age-of-consent laws are absurd," he had pressed. "Do you know how many nineteen-year-old boys have gotten jail sentences for having consensual sex with their seventeen-year-old girlfriends in this year alone?"

"No, I don't," Jon had confessed. "How many?"

"Well, I don't know the exact number. But I bet it's a lot!"

Numbers or no numbers, Jon did understand that it happened, and that it was a colossal failure of the system. So he had said as much.

"Exactly!" Stephen had exclaimed. "So you see why we shouldn't have a system at all!"

"Uh...."

"After all, if a precocious, self-possessed, independent high school freshman wants to have a sexual encounter with a much older man, that should be his prerogative."

"I'm not sure—"

"And if it gets him an A on his pottery project, well, that's just icing on the cake!"

"You did it with the art teacher," stammered Jon.

"He was a beautiful man, Jon!" Stephen had snapped. "You'd have tried it too, if you had seen those pillowy lips!"

"Ah! Jon! There you are!" exclaimed Stephen, both hands under his desk. "Come in, and close the door. I have something to show you."

Jon paused on the threshold, looking suddenly wary. "Stephen...you remember what I told you the other day, right?"

"Don't patronize me, Stewart," snapped Stephen. "Just shut the door and get in here, already."

Jon obeyed, though he still looked doubtful. Stephen nodded for him to come closer. Once Jon was standing across from him, Stephen lifted his wriggling treasure onto the (carefully cleared) desk.

The rainbow-colored golden retriever puppy panted happily up at the visitor.

"Oh, wow," breathed Jon, his face now lit by an inner glow. Without seeming to notice it, he lifted his hands.

"His name is Barry," said Stephen proudly. "You want to hold him?"

Now openly smiling, Jon scooped the puppy into his arms.


	2. Chapter 2

"Whoozagoodboy? Who?" cooed Jon. "You are!"

The rainbow ball of fur in his arms sniffed his chin curiously. It was a tableau that Stephen could have watched all day.

"He's adorable," continued Jon, slipping back into his normal voice. "When did you get him?"

"After we had to put down Slick Willie, I started looking for a new dog," explained Stephen. "And when I saw Barry's coloring, I knew he was the one."

Jon did a double-take. "You're not telling me this is natural."

Stephen kept up the deadpan look for just long enough to make Jon worry, then grinned. "Nope. Jell-O powder. I don't think it'll last, though. He keeps trying to lick it off."

At that, Jon smiled — at Stephen, not the dog, this time! — before lowering himself onto one of Stephen's beanbag chairs, keeping his careful hold on Barry in the process. Sure enough, once they were settled in, Barry started to lick a green tuft on his left foreleg. Jon broke into a giggle and scratched behind his ears.

Stephen felt his insides going gooey with relief. He hadn't been sure this would work. Sure, the idea had been Jon's originally, from that first post-9/11 Moment of Zen (and if a puppy that ugly could cheer people up, surely a puppy as cute as Barry would be even better). But whenever Stephen brought up other things about that episode, Jon got cagey and changed the subject. He was starting to suspect that it was one of the things Jon didn't want to talk about.

When Jon started to rub Barry's fluffy, multicolored sides, the puppy considered the contact for a moment, then rolled over on his back in Jon's lap and presented his belly for further attention. He got it immediately.

Stephen tried not to be jealous.

Then, without looking up, Jon said quietly, "She got the dogs."

Stephen could think of plenty of rational replies to this ( _you'll save a fortune on chew toys; you can always get another dog; the ones you had would have died in a couple of years anyway_ ), but some gut instinct balked at the lot of them.

(Of course, normally Stephen overruled his gut with relentless rationalization. But, well, this felt kind of like the impulse that had told him to stay off the dark street where he and his date had gotten mugged. So maybe sometimes his gut had something going for it.)

"You can come over and see Barry some time," he offered instead. "If you feel like it, I mean."

Scratching Barry's furry stomach, Jon mulled this over.

"Do you really want me, Stephen?" he asked at last.

"Hey!" protested Stephen. "No fair _you_ bringing it up!"

"It's okay — I asked, so I can't exactly get mad if you answer."

Stephen huffed irritably, blowing a lock of hair out of his face. "Isn't it obvious?"

"I don't mean 'do you want to sleep with me'," amended Jon. "I mean — do you want _me?_ Not just because you like sex and I'm a convenient warm body, but because you care about me, specifically? And not because you think you might get a bonus paycheck out of it, either."

Stephen wrinkled his nose in concentration, trying to puzzle out exactly what Jon was saying. "I think about you when I jerk off. Does that help?"

Jon flinched so hard that Barry yelped and tried to wriggle out of his grip. "Too much information, Stephen!"

"Well, you _asked!_ " cried Stephen helplessly. "Doesn't that prove that it's not about money? Or about convenience, because it would be convenient to have _anyone_ in my fantasies, and let's face it, Jon, Imaginary You is cute, but he's no Imaginary Denzel Washington."

For a moment Jon was too busy soothing the puppy to answer. Stephen slumped down onto his desk.

"I don't understand," he sulked into his beard. "I love you, and I want you. Why isn't that good enough?"

Skritching under Barry's purple chin, Jon sighed.

"Tell you what," he said at last. "If you can promise not to get handsy, and not to make any propositions until I give the okay, and not to talk about explicitly sexual things in public, and not to recount any intimate details on _Oprah_ the next day...."

"That was only the one time! And it wasn't like everyone didn't know about Anderson Cooper already!"

"...then you can ask me out on a date."

"What?"

"A date," repeated Jon. "You show up at my house with flowers. We go to a restaurant, eat dinner, have some light conversation. If it goes well, you get a good-night kiss and we arrange to do it again. If not, no hard feelings."

"You realize you're perpetuating a heteronormative, Victorian system of romantic conventions," warned Stephen.

"I prefer to think of it as 'holding out for being treated like a gentleman'," said Jon. "But, listen, if you can't pull it off—"

"Fine!" interrupted Stephen. "We'll do it your way. Jon, will you have dinner with me tonight?"

"I already have plans, sorry," replied Jon. Before Stephen could object, he added, "But I am free next Saturday."

To Jon's surprised relief, the date went very well.

True, Stephen spent most of dinner explaining his plan to solve the religious conflicts in the Middle East by airdropping thousands of leaflets explaining basic yoga positions. ("They wouldn't be so angry all the time if they were more in touch with their chakra, Jon!") But then, as Stephen's schemes went, this was almost reasonable.

All too soon they were standing on the front steps of Jon's building, the summer breeze fluttering stray locks of Stephen's long hair.

"So, how about it?" blurted Stephen. "Can I kiss you yet?"

Jon smiled. "Yeah. I think you can."

"That's what I thought," grumbled Stephen. "You were planning this the whole time, weren't you? String me along, get me to pay for dinner and everything, then turn around and say whoops, sorry Stephen, I have _standards_ and you just don't measure—"

Jon shut him up with a peck on the lips.

Stephen stared at him in bewilderment. "You mean I _could_ have—?"

"That's what I said."

The other man's face crumpled. "And you call that a kiss?"

"You want to try it again?"

Stephen lit up for a moment, then his brows furrowed in concentration. "So...I have permission to kiss you."

"That's right."

"Which is not the same as permission to do anything else with you. Because you believe some things are...more personal than others?"

"Most people do, yeah," said Jon bemusedly.

Stephen's eyes flicked to the door. "So, for instance, I do _not_ have carte blanche to carry you up to your room, strip you down, slather you all over with baby oil, and post the resulting photos on MySpace."

Jon made a mental note to find out just how many nude images of Stephen there were on the Internet, anyway. ("Sensitive, tasteful erotica" still counted.) "Right now, it's liplock or nothing. Take it or leave it."

An instant later, Stephen's mouth was devouring his.

Jon had never been kissed quite like this before. And it wasn't just the roughness of the beard against his jaw, or the faint taste of tobacco, with hints of other less licit compounds thrown in, mingling with the flavor of the after-dinner mints. Stephen was an _expert_ , with hundreds if not thousands of hours of practice, and it showed.

Sweet frosted Jesus, did it show.

"Guh," said Jon cleverly, once he had been released.

Stephen looked anxiously at him.

For a moment Jon thought he was going to ask if that had been all right (which it had, it definitely had), but then Stephen opened his mouth. "Still a no on the baby oil, then?"

Rolling his eyes, Jon pushed Stephen gently away, taking the gamble that his slightly boneless legs wouldn't collapse underneath him. "Good _night_ , Stephen."

Barry, now returned to his natural color except for some red dye crusted in the fluff behind his ears, tore across Stephen's wide back yard after the tennis ball.

Stephen stuck his head out the back door. "Are you sure you don't want me to slip a little chemical enhancement in your tea?" he asked. "Because I really think it would help you relax."

"I think I'll stick to the natural methods of stress relief," replied Jon, as Barry snuffled around in the grass for the prize.

"This _is_ natural," protested Stephen. "It's organic and everything!"

"Does it come in a box that says 'These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA' on the side?"

"No, it comes from a box full of dirt that sits in my upstairs window. See, it's even local!"

Jon laughed. "Nothing extra in my tea, please, Stephen. Local or not."

"Well, all right," said Stephen doubtfully, disappearing into the house.

A moment later, while Jon was attempting to wrestle the slobbery ball out of the puppy's jaws, he leaned out again. "By the way, this counts as our second date, right?"

Jon considered the merits of ending the afternoon with another one of Stephen's toe-curling kisses. On top of that, he had been here twenty minutes and Stephen had resisted inviting him to look over his sex toy collection. Surely that deserved some positive reinforcement.

"Sure," he said.

"Great!" replied Stephen brightly. "Now, I want to make sure I'm prepared for the next time you come over, so when you wear Barry out, there's a shelf upstairs with some things I'd like you to rate...."

As he stepped out of the shower, Jon found himself humming.

He felt a bit self-conscious when he noticed what he was doing, but not enough to stop. After all, he was _happy_. He had the kids for the day and a hot date in the evening, topped off with sex that promised to be personal and meaningful, even if he did relent and let Stephen bring the glow-in-the-dark crucifix dildo into the proceedings.

And, okay, maybe Jon was just a touch smug that he had gotten Stephen "I've-had-thousands-of-sexual-partners" Colbert to sit through three consecutive dates.

On the way to his bureau, Jon heard his phone buzz. Snatching it up from the end table, he dialed his voicemail one-handed while the other rifled through the drawers for a grey T-shirt.

 _"Jon? Hi,"_ said the self-conscious recorded voice. It took a moment for Jon to realize that it was Stephen. _"I, uh, think it would be better for everyone if we called this whole thing off. Sorry for the late notice."_

Jon spent the next ten minutes trying, unsuccessfully, to call back. He might even have driven out to see the caller that instant if his kids hadn't been waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

"Was three dates really too much to ask?"

Stephen looked up from his computer to see Jon leaning on the doorjamb. "Oh! Jon! Hi!" he stammered. "I was just, uh. Emailing my accountant."

Okay, he had more sort of been staring blankly at an empty text field for the past fifteen minutes. But he was _getting_ there.

(Some people liked to rush their business emails, making them all short and clipped and, well, businesslike. Stephen felt it was worth taking the time to fill them out with moving imagery. If the folks in accounting didn't need to take at least half an hour to interpret his messages, it meant he hadn't been poetic enough.)

"Since when would you rather do business than share your feelings?" countered Jon. "Come on, Stephen, talk to me. Is it something I did? Was I trying to take it too slowly?"

"It's not you!" insisted Stephen, avoiding Jon's eyes. "It's not your fault. It isn't."

"Then why won't you tell me?"

"Because..." Stephen squirmed in his chair. "It's _embarrassing_."

Silence.

Slowly, fearfully, Stephen raised his head, to find the other man staring at him as if he had sprouted antlers.

"You're embarrassed," repeated Jon in disbelief.

"I'm sorry! I tried not to be!"

"No, no, it's...it's okay." Jon swallowed hard. "It's okay...that you're not completely shameless. It's a good thing."

"Are you mad?" asked Stephen anxiously.

He wanted to reassure Jon that it was okay to be angry, that it would be forgiven. Stephen was a firm believer in doing unto others as you would have done unto you — and whenever _he_ let himself get angry, he desperately wanted the object of his anger to forgive him. But that sort of thing always seemed to make Jon twitchier, though Stephen could never understand why.

Anyway, Jon said he was fine, and left before Stephen could think of anything else to apologize for.

"No, Stephen, why would I be mad?" demanded Jon, pacing the length of the office. "I just found out that I am apparently the only person on the planet you won't jump into bed with. What could possibly be upsetting about that?"

The little Stephen on the desk bobbed noncommittally at him.

Jon had thought about yelling at Stephen in person, but it was like slapping a jello mold: you would meet no resistance, make a big mess, and feel lousy about it after. And if he stayed angry regardless, Stephen would probably have offered him sex out of guilt, which was the last thing Jon wanted.

"But I did actually want to sleep with you!" he continued, addressing the bobblehead (leftover from an ad campaign; Jon had picked it up on a whim, and Stephen had been so enchanted when he found out that Jon had known he could never get rid of it). "After you've been asking for it for years! Why stop now?"

The toy gave him a reproachful shake of the head.

"I know, I know," groaned Jon. "I've spent those years saying you should _stop_ making yourself available to everyone and the kitchen sink. But you picked a hell of a time to develop standards."

Yeah, he definitely couldn't say that to Stephen's face. There had to be something pretty serious going on to come between Stephen and sex; it wouldn't do any good if Jon started mocking it.

When had he started to take the other man's affections for granted, anyway? After brushing them off for so long, why was he acting like Stephen had no right to withdraw the offer?

"I'm sorry," said the plastic Stephen.

Jon nearly jumped out of his skin. Then he got a grip and turned around.

"I don't mean to be a cock-tease," continued the flesh-and-blood Stephen, and didn't that hit Jon's lingering sense of entitlement like a bucket of ice water. "I just came over to bring you this."

He held out another gift basket, one that wasn't comically oversized.

"It's regular chocolate this time," he said quickly. "And some flowers. Nothing to creep you out. And you can still come see Barry any time. If you want. I know you might not want anything to do with me, and that would be okay, too."

"I still want to be your friend, Stephen," protested Jon as he hurried over to accept the basket. To his surprise, even on closer inspection, it was completely benign. "If that's not going to freak you out."

"It's not!" exclaimed Stephen. "Not at all! It's just...I know I'm not the easiest person to be friends with."

If it had been anyone else, Jon would have reacted to this with a white lie. But if there was one thing guaranteed to upset Stephen, it was convenient fictions. He wanted the straight truth, even when strict politeness demanded otherwise.

"You're right," said Jon bluntly. "You're not. But I don't care."

Stephen looked like he might melt into a puddle right there on the hardwood floor.

"So if you dumped me because you're afraid you wouldn't be easy enough to date...." continued Jon hesitantly.

"It's not that," insisted Stephen. "It's — it's — oh, Jon, would you keep a secret for me? Even though I know secrets are toxic, and I know I've always said you can share anything about me, at any time, with anyone, so it would be hypocritical of me to go back on that, and—"

Jon cut him off with a raised hand. "I respect your right to privacy, Stephen. Even when you don't."

Stephen managed a nod, though he still looked uncertain.

"It's getting kind of stuffy in here," continued Jon, setting the gift basket aside. "You want to take a walk?"

They ended up crossing the street and strolling through the shady parts of Clinton, trees and walls and plant-covered fences making a thin attempt at disguising the fact that they were in the middle of a city. The illusion only really worked if you actively agreed to buy into it. Stephen never did.

"I'm...selfish, Jon," he admitted.

He waited for the other man to agree, or at least acknowledge that it was a valid perspective. But Jon just watched him, with even, steady attention.

"Maybe you haven't noticed," allowed Stephen. "I mean, you remember how ready I was to share that Emmy with Barry Manilow. And then there's all the charity work I do, for no recognition whatsoever. I mean, I point it out on the show all the time, but that's only to encourage other people to join in."

"I understand."

"But it's all just me trying to compensate. I'm really a very self-centered person."

"Stephen," said Jon hesitantly, "is this something your parents used to tell you?"

"'Used to'?" echoed Stephen, puzzled. "Mom called me a selfish hedonist on the phone just last week."

Jon looked grim. "Have you told her yet that you want to cut down on those calls?"

"Of course I have. What do you think set her off in the first place?"

"You shouldn't put up with that, Stephen," said Jon, his voice very stern.

"No, no, she's right." Before Jon could contradict him again, Stephen plowed on. "I'm trying to fight it, though. I thought I was doing really well, too! Most of the time I don't even mind sharing! It's like I told my wife — back when she still _was_ my wife, I mean — if I had been the one who walked in on _her_ in our bed with another man, I never would have made a fuss about it!"

Jon's eyebrows shot up, but if he had anything to say about that, he kept it to himself.

"But then, the other night, I was doing...that thing that makes you uncomfortable when I talk about it." Stephen normally abhorred self-censorship, but he figured he owed Jon _something_ for being so good to him. "And I was imagining you, but it was different than usual because I knew it was so close to actually happening, and then I realized...."

He focused resolutely on the path under his feet as he forced the words out.

"I couldn't share you, Jon!" he exclaimed. "I hate the thought of other people even _kissing_ you. If anyone else tried to sleep with you, I would want to smash Sweetness over their stupid head. So you see why I have to cut this off _now_ , before I turn into this horrible controlling person that I don't want to be!"

Jon stopped in his tracks.

 _Don't hide from the consequences of your actions,_ Stephen ordered himself, dragging his eyes back to meet Jon's face — and staring in utter confusion.

"Are you kidding?" sputtered Jon, voice weak with relief as he tried and failed to hide a smile with his fist. "Is that all? And here you had me worried there was something terrible going on!"

"Of course it's terrible!" protested Stephen, bewildered. "I just confessed that I'm a possessive, jealous hypocrite! How can you be okay with that?"

"Is that what you said?" asked Jon, laughing outright now. "Because all I heard was that you'd like to experiment with monogamy! I know you disapprove, but I promise, it's a perfectly valid lifestyle choice."

"But the restrictions it would put on you...!"

"What restrictions? I wasn't planning on sleeping around in the first place, whether you minded or not. I'm a one-person-at-a-time kind of person."

"Maybe in practice, but in principle it wouldn't be fair, it—"

"My God, Stephen," interrupted Jon, "stop _thinking_ so much, already."

And he dragged Stephen into a kiss.

Jon's mouth was enthusiastic but sloppy, and Stephen could only put up with that for so long before taking over. He was petrified at first of using too much force, but Jon yielded to his control instantly, with the kind of groan that suggested maybe he didn't mind the way Stephen's hands were yanking at his hair, not that delicious throaty groans automatically implied consent to be pushed up against a handy tree while Stephen nipped at his bottom lip—

Jon wrenched his mouth away with a gasp. Stephen froze.

"Dammit," muttered Jon under his breath, jerking his head towards the road. Stephen followed his gaze just in time to see a cell phone vanish into a pocket before the watching figure turned and bolted.

A moment later, it hit him. "Oh, right. You don't like being in tabloids, do you? If you want to stop...."

"Not on your life," said Jon promptly. "But we better take this inside before it goes any further."

The words perked Stephen up at once. "Can we have wild passionate sex over your desk?" he asked hopefully, as they walked back to the studio arm in arm.

"Let's make it wild passionate sex on your bed," said Jon with a laugh. "Fewer splinters."


End file.
